Hal Luftig, the producer of last year’s Tony-nominated revival of “Evita,” is emphatic about one thing: His version is nothing like what your parents saw 30 years ago.

The national touring show, which opens Tuesday at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts, looks and sounds strikingly different from director Hal Prince’s original Broadway production, which debuted in 1979.

“Look, what Hal did was great,” Luftig said. “I was mesmerized by it. But we didn’t know nearly as much about Eva Perón or (that period in) Argentina back then. So (the original production) looked kind of stripped down and Brechtian. And Tim Rice told me that when he was writing it, very little information was available.”

But in the past three decades, the world has learned much more about the life and premature death of Argentina’s most famous first lady, a small-town entertainer who clawed and charmed her way to fame and power before dying of cancer at 33. Luftig’s creative team took advantage of that new knowledge.

“At the top of our show there is actual archival footage of (Evita’s) funeral. It wasn’t available in the 1970s. Now that the world has opened up we were able to find things like that.”

Director Michael Grandage, choreographer Rob Ashford and set and costume designer Christopher Orem decided to go for historical authenticity for their “Evita.” The time period of the story spans almost two decades, from 1934 to 1952. “We wanted everything to look and feel and sound completely like Argentina from that era,” Luftig said.

That meant basing the set on real-world places such as the Casa Rosada, a rose-colored house that is the executive mansion and office of Argentina’s president.

The musical’s Andrew Lloyd Webber score has been changed as well, Luftig said.

“We have re-orchestrated the music. We wanted to get a more accurate ‘Argentina’ sound. There’s a lot of tango now in the music and the choreography.” Argentina’s most celebrated art form “is wonderful at expressing lots of different emotions and feelings: happy, sad, angry, sexual,” Luftig said.

Thirty years is a long time to wait for the first revival of a hit Broadway musical. But one large impediment stood in the path toward its resurrection: Lloyd Webber.

“Andrew didn’t allow it to be revived,” Luftig said. “Why, I don’t know. He received several requests from reputable people and turned them down.”

Not just a faded copy

But Luftig was indefatigable in his determination to bring “Evita” back to the Broadway stage – even to the point of being a pest.

“I was persistent, I’ll say that. On opening night, one of the people at (Lloyd Webber’s) company who had worked with me said, ‘Congratulations! You were like a dog with a bone on this.’ There were many times when I thought it was never going to happen.”

Luftig has his theories about Lloyd Webber’s reluctance. “I think he was worried that whoever would (star as Eva and Che Guevara) would be compared to Patti (LuPone) and Mandy (Patinkin).” (They won Tonys for their portrayals of Eva and Che, the narrator.) “He also had trouble understanding why this would be relevant to an American audience now. But I won him over finally.”

Caroline Bowman as Eva Perón and Josh Young as Che in "Evita." It opens Tuesday Dec. 10 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. RICHARD TERMINE
Caroline Bowman as Eva Perón and Josh Young as Che in "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Caroline Bowman as Eva Perón in the national tour of "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Caroline Bowman (Eva) dances with members of the cast. RICHARD TERMINE
Christopher Johnstone as Magaldi and Caroline Bowman as Eva Peron. RICHARD TERMINE
Christopher Johnstone as Magaldi in the National Tour of "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Josh Young as Che and the touring cast of "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Josh Young as Che in "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Krystina Alabado as The Mistress and Josh Young as Che. RICHARD TERMINE
Krystina Alabado as The Mistress in "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Sean MacLaughlin as Juan Perón and Caroline Bowman as Eva Perón. RICHARD TERMINE
Sean MacLaughlin as Juan Perón with the Generals in a scene from "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Sean McLaughlin as Juan Perón and Caroline Bowman as Eva Perón RICHAARD TERMINE
The touring cast of "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE
Sean MacLaughlin as Juan Perón in "Evita." RICHARD TERMINE

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